Friday, May 10, 2013

I've Just Got A Lot To Say

Being five is hard.I don’t really remember much about five.I remember not crying the first day of kindergarten, securing my dignity for the next 33 years.I remember taking my Star Wars record to school in the hopes that all the kids could dance to the soothing beats of John Williams.In actuality, the teacher said, “You can’t dance to this.”That’s when I put on the Cantina Song, like a boss.But, I imagine it’s probably hard these days for a five year old to navigate the depths of Kindergarten in 2013, where you have to learn to read and count if you want to go to first grade.My kid has had her share of trouble, mostly brought on by her personality.

They have a traffic light system for behavior.If you’re completely awful, you get a red light.If you do something wrong or get multiple warnings, you get a yellow light.Walk the line and green is fine.A blue light is reserved for the best of the ass kissers their school has to offer.My kid has probably had equal amount of yellows as greens.Most of the time, I question the validity of the punishment, but with her owning a tablet computer now, we gauge her use of it but what she brings home.Sometimes, the explanations are a bit shady.

Like the time they were playing charades and she said, “Bum”, prompting her classmate to tell the teacher she said a potty word.Well, that got her a yellow.We interrogated her, because we were convinced she had to have said something worse.Like, where could she have heard such language?(troll face)But she swore up and down that she did, in fact, not swear.My wife eventually said, “Really?You said bum?Oh, for God’s sake, the teacher needs to get a life.”And, of course, the next day, she got another yellow.Her report stated that she informed her teacher that, “My mommy says you need to get a life.”Well, apparently, everybody heard this statement at her school.She was pretty up front with it.

Then there was the time she was getting a couple of yellows, because she wouldn’t stop acting like an animal.We had a long talk about “playing the game”.“Look, I understand you’re five.You pretend to be animals.But, while you are in school, they don’t appreciate it.So, don’t act like an animal at school.”“OK”, she says.

A few weeks later, after a string of good reports and even a few blue lights, the yellow showed up again.When we looked at her report, it said, “She was acting like a turkey.”So, we told her,“Look, didn’t we have this conversation?We asked you to not act like an animal.You promised us you would not do that in school.”Her response?“A turkey isn’t an animal.It’s a bird.”Now, I didn’t want to get into semantics over animal vs. bird.So, we just face palmed.

Then, after a three day stretch of a green and two blues, she came home with another yellow.“What did you do this time?”She told her mother that she got into trouble for talking.Her response to why, “I’ve just got a lot to say.”

Indeed, she does.So, I am exploiting that trait.She saw me playing a new game called Game Dev Tycoon and I was sucking pretty bad at it.She offered advice on how to design a bestselling game and soon I was raking in the dough.Later on that night, I decided to record her for an AngryCast video.